Kieran Tierney says ‘it hurts’ knowing he will spend the next four weeks watching the World Cup rather than playing at it.
While teams put together their final preparations for the Qatar World Cup that starts on 20 November, many other nations have been taking part in friendlies.
Kieran Tierney played the full 90 minutes for Scotland on Wednesday night as his side lost 2-1 to Turkey at the Diyarbakır Stadyumu in the Turkish district of Kayapinar.
Speaking after the match, Tierney insisted that the defeat was not one to get too worried about for his nation.
“There’s no point in looking into it too much,” Tierney said.
“We got beat. Turkey are a good team. We were playing away from home. These things can happen in football. I wouldn’t read too much into it. We’ve got a few months to go [until the start of the Euro 2024 campaign], but we are positive.
“We can’t work on anything for the next few months with no training. We need to stick in at club level, work hard and make sure we are ready for coming back.
“It’s not nice to get beat. We wanted to keep the unbeaten run going. So it’s not great. But we know we are going to go to hostile places and come up against tough teams with good players and a loud crowd. So it was an experience for us, one we can learn from.”
Scotland failed to qualify for Qatar. They finished second in Group F behind Denmark, setting up a play-off against Ukraine who won the tie 3-1.
As a result, Tierney will be with Arsenal while many of his teammates are in Qatar.
“It hurts, it does,” he admitted.
“At Arsenal, you see 10 or 11 players going away and you just wish it was going to be you. And us as a country.
“We’re gutted but we will use that as a learning curve.
“We will turn that hurt into a positive and try to change it next time.”
Arsenal are due to play friendlies over the course of the World Cup break, and you can read more about that here.